"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Unscripted perfection." ~Scott Adams/d.millener

One-Pager Reader's Response

A One-Pager is a single-page response that shows your understanding of a piece of text you have read, be it a poem, novel, chapter of a book, excerpt or any other literature. It is a way of displaying your individual, unique understanding and respond to your reading imaginatively and honestly. The purpose of a One-Pager is to own what you have read. We learn best when we are able to create our own patterns!

The Rules

  • ​Include a “border” that reflects the unit of learning or theme. This can include words, pictures, symbols, or quotes from the text. Fill the paper to the edges. ​
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  • ​Put the title of the text you’re responding to, the author’s name and the genre somewhere on the page where the reader will notice it (required).
 
  • Include no less than THREE notable quotes, phrases or passages that are important to the understanding of the text. Include quotation marks and a citation.*
 
  • Draw/Create/Paste no less than THREE images that stand out and represent themes, characters, conflict and/or the setting of the text. These can be 3D images as well.
 
  • Write THREE personal statements or connections about what you have read. These are not simple opinions or book review type statements. (Ex: NOT this: “I can relate to the main character feeling lost because I've been lost before." But LIKE this: “I can relate to the main character feeling lost in the text because it reminded me of when I got to middle school and didn’t know where anything was.”)
 
  • Write and answer TWO Level 2 or Level 3 questions. (Click here for a review on Reading Levels.)
 
  • Include image/text examples about your annotations and color markings from your text as well.
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  • When you finish, your audience should be able to understand and relate to something about the literature from reviewing what you wrote/illustrated.​

​Choice of Topic

Choose topics that reflect your personal interests. Topics may be based on any aspect(s) of the work(s) studied, including:
  • the cultural setting of the work(s) and related issues
  • thematic focus
  • characterization
  • techniques and style
  • the author’s attitude to particular elements of the works (for example, character(s), subject matter)
  • new interpretations of an idea from different perspectives

​The Specs

  • Use a lot of color, patterns, texture, writing styles, photographs, paintings, etc., to illustrate your thoughts and ideas clearly and creatively. Be neat, but your ENTIRE PAGE should be filled with these elements.
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  • If you find you have extra room, repeat any of the above steps/elements.
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  • No space should be blank or left in pencil (unless you’re using colored pencils to sketch).
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  • Your full name and class period should be on the BACK of the one-pager.
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  • Your artwork must fit on an 81/2 x 11 sheet of paper, portrait or landscape, as long as all the specs are adhered to. (You will receive a zero if you change your paper or size.)​

Focus of the Individual Oral Presentation (IOP)

You will present your work to the class. Whatever the topic and type of presentation chosen, you will be expected to show:
  • knowledge and understanding of the works
  • thorough appreciation of the aspect discussed
  • good use of strategies to engage an audience
  • delivery of the presentation in a manner that is appropriate to the task
  • In no case can you read from a prepared talk

Select a Tightly-focused Topic 
  • Too Broad: “Race and Gender”
  • Tightly-focused: “How racial hierarchy is set up and how it impacts gender.” 
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  • Too Broad: “Power Relations”
  • Tightly-focused: “How different characters reveal power through the use of language.”
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  • Too Broad: “Death and its consequences”
  • Tightly-focused: “The way in which death impacts other characters”
 
Select the most appropriate extracts to demonstrate your points of view.
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The extracts/examples you choose to highlight should be the most appropriate to explain the points you want to make. Make sure that you focus on every literary technique contained and explain their effect. Include syntax and diction, as well as the more obvious literary techniques used in prose. Refer to the text.  Include examples and well-incorporated quotations.

Oral Presentation
  • During your oral presentation, make sure that you respond, especially, to any SPEECH and personal connections that you discover about yourself, your environment, the world around you, your future. (SPEECH=social, political, economic, environmental, cultural, historical)

What NOT To Do

  • Do NOT use both sides. ​
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  • Do NOT change the size of the paper. The specs are 8.5x11.
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  • Don’t merely summarize—you’re not retelling the story.
 
  • Use unlined paper only, to keep from being restricted by lines.
 
  • Don’t think half a page will do—it won’t be accepted. Period. Make the paper rich with “quotes” and images. FILL THE PAPER UP!

*Your answers must cite textual evidence using a citation (page number/s). If your passage/quote is a part of dialogue, include the character's name who said it.

Presentations

When you are presenting, make sure that you are:
  • Making eye-contact with your audience
  • Enthused
  • Engaged
  • Alert

Do not:
  • Give a summary of your one-pager or your presentation
  • Bore your audience
  • Mumble/Stutter
  • Get off-track

You have 2 minutes to talk about how the book was written and how your analysis is connected to that.

​Peer Evaluations

While your classmates are presenting, make sure that you are actively engaged. You will be given a presentation worksheet on which to take notes with specificity throughout the presentations.

After all presentations are completed, you will share your critiques and discuss the analysis of your overall presentations. You will be graded on the level of feedback you offer on your worksheet and orally.

Creative Grading Rubric

Proposal Plan & Content Rubric

Exemplary Samples